CSR

A sustainable Company

Minimising our Carbon footprint

We strive to meet ambitious reduction goals

Because the kilning process requires large amount of energy, most of our large sites rely upon cogeneration plants to convert natural gas into electricity and usable heat.Cogeneration plants conserve energy by capturing heat rather than allowing it to escape as it would with thermal power plants or heat engines.The captured heat can then be used in the kilning process and we save energy by utilising the heat that would have been lost.We hope to further decrease our dependency on fossil fuels by transforming our own by- products and some side stream products such as the straw produced by parent company into bio gas, green heat and green electricity.

During germination, malting barley produces CO2 as part of its natural growth cycle. Because the plant uses CO2 from the air during development, the exhaust is neutral.Boortmalt is also an active member of Euromalt, the European association of the malting industry. Together with our fellow malt producers, we strive to improve our carbon foot print.Our ambition is to reduce our dependence on fossil energies by 60% by 2030 and replace them with renewable energies.

Health & Safety

The health and safety of our co-workers remains an absolute priority

Boortmalt strives to minimise or eliminate the causes of potential accidents that could occur within our industry. We educate our workers by ensuring that specific safety training courses remain mandatory and personal safety equipment is obligatory in all of our facilities.All our site activities i.e. what we do and how we do it, is aligned with ATEX best practice standards and we continuously seek better and safer ways of working to further reduce any possibility of a dust explosion in any of our facilities.

Water consumption

Because malt production requires a substantial amount of drinking quality water, all of our facilities have been equipped with water purification systems. Whereas traditional malting required more than 5 cubic meters of water to produce a single ton of malt, and although limited to 4 cubic meters per ton, Boortmalt currently produces a ton of malt with less than 3 cubic meters of water.

We strive to make more malt with less water and continue to invest in technology such as the Membrane Bioreactor at our Antwerp facility. Our challenge is to reduce by 2 our water consumption by changing effluent water into drinking quality water to be used again for malt production. It is a challenge that we welcome for our business, community and the environment.

Barley Production

All Axereal barley farmers cultivate their crops according to a strict sustainable development policy.As sustainability becomes an ever increasing issue throughout the entire supply chain, Boortmalt strives to link customer expectations for malt with sustainable farming practices in the production of malting barley.As part of our commitment and support of sustainable agriculture, Boortmalt is a member of The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform and a leading participant in the SAI forum.

In short

BOORTMALT is an International Malting Company created in 1927 in Belgium. It produces and globally markets barley malts to brewing & distilling companies and craft brewers and distillers.

BOORTMALT has 10 malting plants in Europe (Belgium, England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Hungary and Croatia) and enjoys a well-recognized expertise in the production of quality malts.